USC football signs national deal with ESPN Radio

The University of Southern California will become the second school to have its home football games broadcast live on a national network after signing a deal today with ESPN Radio.

The network announced a multi-year agreement for exclusive rights for all home football games. Notre Dame, which has a deal with IMG Sports, is the only other school with a similar arrangement.

According to Sports Business Journal, ESPN will sell the games to local stations, giving priority to network affiliates. The SBJ story also said that ESPN executives “hinted that they will try to cut similar deals with individual schools and college conferences.”

3 Responses

Does USC have the same kind of nationwide following that ND has? I found this surprising. I also wonder if college football is that popular on the radio with so many games on TV every weekend of the season.

@Sharon: To answer your second question first, college football — in fact, games in general — do well on radio for folks who are driving and can’t watch it on TV.

To the first question, I don’t believe USC has the following of Notre Dame, but the games probably will sell in Pac-10 territory. I expect ESPN to try to cut deals with a few other majors programs. Just guessing here, but maybe Alabama, Florida, Ohio State and Michigan are on the radar. I’d like to include Penn State, since I’m an alum, but no one wants to touch that school since the Sandusky scandal.